Gree to open Vancouver mobile studio

After months of serious setbacks to Vancouver's development community, Gree has announced plans to open a new office in the Canadian city.

The Japanese mobile games company has stepped up its game in North America, and has already announced a new studio in San Francisco.

The new studio, headed up by former VP of consumer operations Steve Lin, will focus on free-to-play mobile titles,

"The goal for the Canadian studio is to merge the knowledge we gained from our recent successes with more experimental approaches," said Lin.

"We want to take some risks and come up with new games and ideas that will contribute to the ongoing evolution of the mobile game space."

This will be Gree's seventh studio, and the company hopes it will release its first game in the next six to eight months.

First though, the company is going to be doing some serious hiring.

"The creative community in Vancouver has made tremendous contributions to the mobile and video game industry and we are looking forward to tapping into that talent pool and building a team of passionate innovators," said Lin.

Those interested in joining the new studio can find the recruiting team at next week's Casual Connect in Seattle at platinum table 1 located in the grand lobby of Benaroya Hall.